High Court: Community Must Take in Arabs

The High Court made clear Tuesday that the community of Rakefet in the Galilee has no choice but to accept an Arab couple that wishes to live in it. The couple, Ahmed and Fatna Zubeidat, took the community to court demanding that it accept them.

In 2007, the Supreme Court instructed the Israel Lands Authority to set aside a plot for the couple to build on. The ILA eventually acquiesced. All of the sides involved in the court motion said that they accept the decision, except for Rakefet, which informed the court that an assembly of residents has to convene and discuss the matter.

Rakefet is a small Jewish community of less than 200 families surrounded by much larger Arab ones, like Sakhnin. Since the mid-1990s, Arabs aided by New Israel Fund groups have been challenging Jewish communities to accept them into their fold, while Jews who attempt to live in Arab communities encounter severe violence.